Lisa has recently been debating some formidable adversaries concerning some of the ballot initiatives. We’ll talk with her about Prop 30, and 38, and of course I have to ask her for her thoughts on Prop 32, the initiative the public employee unions are going all out to defeat, and which former Senator Gloria Romero, the Director of CA Democrats for Education Reform, supports.

Two Fridays ago, Lisa and her husband were part of a gathering of activists invited to a private screening of the film, Won’t Back Down. which was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Bonnie Reiss, the new Global Director of the new USC Schwarzenegger Institute. Reiss presided over an impressive all star panel which included Leyla Avila, Exec V.P. of TNTP Gabriel Medel, Founder of Parents for Unity, Julie Collier, Founder of Parents Advocat League, Michelle Rhee, CEO/Founder of Students First, and Daniel Barnz, the film Director of Won’t Back Down. The movie premieres this Friday, so we’ll have a few words about it too.

Sometimes the programing display for CRN 1 is not current, and it may say another program is playing. If it’s Tuesday, you can be sure Gadfly Radio is on from 10 am to 11 am PT! The number to call if you have any questions or comments during the show is 1-800-336-2225

The following is Steven Greenhut’s response to “‘Serious, point-of-view journalism’?,” a Columbia Journalism Review article about Watchdog.org. CJR declined to print the response, but instead asked us to post it in its comments section. CJR’s reporter did not contact Watchdog.org or the Franklin Center (Watchdog’s parent organization) for a comment before publishing its story. (Click here to read on.)

Matt calls it Juan Gone. Catchy. kind of rhymes with bong, which incidentally is part of this piece in the form of a YouTube clip from Herold and Kumar 2, the full airplane scene. NPR execs who fired Juan, idiots. But damn, are we messed up for not being miffed over this absurdity?

Juan Gone

Matt Welch | October 21, 2010

Here’s a Washington Post headline for you: “NPR fires Juan Williams over anti-Muslim remarks.” What were the “anti-Muslim remarks” in question? These:

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country,” he said. “But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Williams then brought up a statement made in a New York courtroom this month by Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani American who pleaded guilty to trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square and was sentenced to life in prison.

“He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Williams said.

That latter half cannot be the objectionable bit, so we’re left with this 21st century ask-the-ethicist puzzler: Is it now “anti-Muslim” to admit your anxiety when seeing an Orthodox-looking Muslim on Islamic terrorists’ most infamous weapon of mass murder? I think if you stated that most Muslims are a threat (a much more declarative formulation than “I get worried” about “people who are in Muslim garb”), or that all Muslims should be singled out for special scrutiny, or that our basic policy problem is with Muslims, then you might be getting warmer. But later in the O’Reilly interview, Williams specifically repudiated all three of those sentiments:

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The status quo of education in the U.S. is destructive to our Nation, and to ignore this truth is to be numb, unconscious or in denial of reality.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament."--A Nation At Risk - April 1983

Drug War Clock for Current Year

Police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for cannabis violations in 2009. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only.
Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation Your tax dollars at work--but for whom?

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Dedicated to considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness… "to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." --Plato on Socrates